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T O P I C R E V I E W

Robert Pearlman

The Huntsville Times reports that Heinz Hilten, the architect and musician who helped design Redstone Arsenal for Wernher von Braun and co-founded the Huntsville Symphony Orchestra, died March 1, 2013. He was 103.

Hilten was drafted into the German army at the beginning of World War II and sent to work with the V-2 rocket team headed by von Braun at Peenemuende. He was not part of von Braun's original "Paperclip team" of scientists and engineers moved to America just after the war, but Hilten moved to Huntsville to rejoin the team in 1954. Once in Alabama, he helped plan Redstone Arsenal's growth until 1960 when he moved to NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center upon its creation.

At Marshall, Hilten designed laboratories, control centers, test stands and administrative buildings. ''I always said that I was not a space scientist that designed the rockets, but that I designed the space those scientists worked with,'' Hilten said. He also did private architectural work on several homes, including his own on Carroll Circle on Monte Sano, and designed swimming pools for von Braun and Paperclip member Dr. Ernst Stuhlinger.

A musician all his life, Hilten played the piano and violin. His gatherings with fellow expatriates and other musicians in Huntsville during the 1950s led to the founding of the Huntsville orchestra in 1960. When Hilten turned 100, members of the symphony came to his Huntsville retirement home to play for him.